Klansville, U.S.A.: the Rise and Fall of the Civil Rights-Era Ku Klux Klan

The UNC-Chapel Hill Journal of History David Cunningham. KLANSVILLE, U.S.A.: THE RISE AND FALL OF THE CIVIL RIGHTS-ERA KU KLUX KLAN. New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013. Reviewed by Evan Faulkenbury Travelers moving westward along Highway 70 near Smithfeld, North Carolina, in 1966 would have noticed a brightly painted billboard that boldly proclaimed: “You are in the Heart of Klan Country. Welcome to North Carolina. Help Fight Integration & Communism!” For some, the notice spelled welcome, but for others, it sent an ominous warning. Dozens of identical signs littered the state’s roads, simultaneously promoting the United Klans of America (UKA) and intimidating those who dared believe that the rights of citizenship extended beyond white Protestants. Whether in Smithfeld, Salisbury, Greensboro, or Goldsboro, UKA members proudly declared their state to be “Klansville, U.S.A.,” home to the largest and most active Ku Klux Klan in the country. Klansville, U.S.A.: Te Rise and Fall of the Civil Rights-Era Ku Klux Klan is an iconoclastic account of the Old North State during the mid-twentieth century. A sociologist at Brandeis University whose previous work revolves around federal counterintelligence of both the Klan and the New Lef, author David Cunningham exposes a dark underside of North Carolina, one that is far removed from the progressive bastion that politicians and business leaders led the nation to believe North Carolina to be. Te state housed a powerful terrorist organization that shaped local politics, united communities, and harassed African Americans, all while hiding in plain sight in a place known for its moderation among its Deep South brethren. Drawing on Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) reports, oral histories, local newspapers, and fles from the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC), Cunningham traces the history of the United Klans in North Carolina and argues that their activism was part of a broader reactionary social movement responding to recent African American economic and social gains. He further contends that the UKA played a role in the conservative upsurge of the late 1960s within the Republican Party. With 192 klaverns (the customary name for local KKK cells) and around 12,000 members at its peak, the UKA certainly was a force in North Carolina 290 Book Reviews for much of the 1960s. It remains doubtful, however, that the UKA played a major role in this political shif, but Cunningham’s insightful commentary on the cultural signifcance of the United Klans is persuasive. While Cunningham briefy outlines the long history of the Ku Klux Klan from Reconstruction onward, his focus remains on the UKA, a union of Klans formed in 1961 under the intense leadership of Robert M. Shelton. As Imperial Wizard, Shelton crisscrossed the South for years delivering the keynote address at Klan rallies, where he would at once denounce civil rights, communism, Black Power, Jews, and the federal government. In 1963, Shelton loyalist Bob Jones emerged as Grand Dragon over North Carolina, tasked with the mission of revitalizing the Klan across the state. By the summer of 1964, Jones’s adept leadership and tireless promotion of the UKA resulted in a statewide resurgence. Dues-paying members reached an all-time high and large rallies were common, resembling “skewed county fairs, complete with live music, concessions, souvenirs, and rafes and other games for adults and children.” While the UKA consciously tried to build a wholesome public image, a “militant core” within the organization intimidated African Americans and liberal whites with cross burnings and clandestine attacks. For years the UKA enjoyed its infuence, but by 1969 federal investigations, infghting, and pending charges against its leadership reduced the organization to a shell of its former self. Te irony of North Carolina’s reputation as a progressive stronghold, while at the same time that it was home to the era’s most powerful Ku Klux Klan, is central to Cunningham’s argument. Troughout the Deep South, where governors took public stands against integration and where police ofcers unleashed water hoses and dogs on peaceful marchers, right-wing extremism had company. Local klaverns in these states competed for membership and publicity with various radical organizations, such as the White Citizens’ Councils. North Carolina during much of the 1960s, however, retained a moderate government that actively cultivated a progressive business and political image, all while quietly maintaining similar Jim Crow laws as other southern states. Superfcially at least, leaders abided by federal civil rights legislation and slowly desegregated public schools. With North Carolina’s leadership projecting a spirit of cooperation, poor whites across the state felt abandoned and feared black competition in work and society. Class tensions thus contributed to the UKA’s rise in North Carolina. Poor 291 The UNC-Chapel Hill Journal of History whites, who made up the bulk of the membership, joined the UKA to form “an organized defense of ‘authentic’ white interests.” Tus, North Carolina’s brand of racial moderation paradoxically provided the social space for the Klan to thrive. As a sociologist, Cunningham’s methodological approach highlights the communal structure of the UKA. He draws on ethnic competition and social movement theory to explain motivations and understand the popularity of the Klan in North Carolina. Cunningham contends that a shared sense of racial threat metastasized into mass collective action that revolved around an imaginative narrative of victimization. UKA members interpreted African American gains as a loss to their own privilege, and through kinship ties, prejudice could be shared. A sophisticated network of community activities linked Klan members and fostered their movement, including rallies, marches, membership rites, church barbeques, newspapers, women’s auxiliary groups, and support from local businesses. Te author weaves these activities together to explain the sociological side of the Klan, but keeps his focus on contingencies that characterizes the complex history of the UKA. In far too many histories, scholars dismiss the Ku Klux Klan as a fanatical group that had no bearing on the larger political economy. With this study, Cunningham demonstrates the frightening infuence of the radical right. Te UKA may have been smaller by comparison to other institutions, but it was far-reaching and part of the wider conservative movement. Klansville, U.S.A. may have referred only to North Carolina during the 1960s, but as the larger history of the twentieth century illustrates, extremism had no borders. 292.

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